The Blackguard

by Roger Pocock

CHAPTER IX

"Sir,—I have the honour to inform you that Mr. Ramsay has been delivered in good condition at the Throne Mine. I regret to add that he has broken my left arm with a stick of dynamite which he threw at a chipmunk, now deceased. I will report to-morrow.

"I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
JOSÉ LAS MORẼNAN DE LA MANCHA,
Constable.

"The Officer Commanding,
Wild Horse Creek,
Kootenay, B.C."

This letter, written with pain and difficulty on a piece of wrapping paper, was put, by the Blackguard's directions, into one of the saddle-bags of Mr. Ramsay's horse.

"Make her head fast by a check-rein to the horn of the saddle," he said. "Bash the animal on the hindquarters, then turn her loose on the down trail Since she can't feed until the check-rein's unfastened, she'll go straight to camp, unless she's a born fool."

He was sitting in front of the log-cabin, his arm in splints and a sling, while the prospectors. Long Leslie and Shorty, followed these instructions as to the horse. When the mare was gone, to the extreme disgust of La Mancha's huge black charger, he looked from one to the other of the two miners.

"Prospectors' luck," he said regretfully. "Your chipmunk, now demised, had a nibble of flour a day, while I eat by the bushel."

"I guess we can stand it," said Shorty; "you needn't growl till you're told."

"Prospectors' luck," said Long Leslie wistfully, "brings a jolly good fellow to remind us we're still alive. It's your turn, Shorty, to wash up—I'm going to smoke." So he sat down beside the Blackguard, not the less enjoying his after-supper pipe because his partner must do the dirty work of the day. "We've been getting lonesome these last few months," he said,—"since the Lunatic came."

"He's a cad!" said the Blackguard.

"It's not so much that, although a Chinaman would be better company. Shorty doesn't mind, he's used to it; but I get thinking, and thinking. What does it all amount to—this life?"

"It's jolly good fun while it lasts."

"For you—yes. I used to say the same in my college days, but now— Do you know, Miss Burrows talked with me to-day for the first time. Before that her greetings were like mine to a horse when I stroke its nose. I'm not thirty yet, but from her point of view I don't count."

"I think," said the Blackguard, "that the symptoms demand a pill. How is our tongue?—our pulse? Um!—ah!—we shall get over it. But seriously, why don't you scratch up a fight with somebody—say, with Shorty? That would do you a world of good."

"You're a rare good sort, Blackguard, but you don't seem to understand. This Tough Nut Claim is as good as claims go—nine feet of passable wet ores running a steady average of thirty-five dollars a ton; but until we get shipping facilities it might as well be at the North Pole. There'll be a railroad through the valley in, say, ten years. Suppose we sell out then at fifty thousand—I shall be forty then, and the only reading matter meanwhile is the New York Police Gazette, with a number of the Century perhaps once in six months. It isn't good enough."

"By George, when a prospector gets the blues he's worse than an old soldier. Go on, if it does you good."

"I should have been all right but for Burrows yonder, with plenty of cariboo, not a few grizzlies; and these summits would knock the spots out of the Alpine Club. But the Lunatic, as we call him, has put us all out of date. It's all very well sneering at new ideas, but his methods are further above our heads than American quartz-mining is above the fuddling of the old Spanish colonists. They had ladder shafts, buckets for pumping, an arastra for milling; we have common sense tunnelling, and send sorted ores to the smelter. Burrows sneers at our fissure veins, and quarries the bare country granite. Of course, I knew all along that whole mountain ranges run a dollar and a half to the ton, but I didn't care while milling cost two dollars a ton. This man is a heaven-born genius, who can mine, mill, and render his gold into ingots for only a dollar a ton."

The Blackguard whistled. "If that's true," he said, "the man's got a corner on gold—why, it's awful!"

"Archimedes said that he could capsize the planet if he had leverage. This man has leverage; capitalise his idea, get the place in the Sierras where there are the best conditions of labour, power, freighting, gradients, and a seaport; then turn him loose because he has the philosopher's stone which can transmute whole ranges of mountains into gold."

"He's such a cad, too," said the Blackguard. "But how did you find him out?"

"Worked in his mill last winter until he sacked me for calling him a maniac. I did that to draw him out, and once he started bragging in self-defence I had the key to his machinery. He has two rotary fans which get up a small cyclone between them. Into that cyclone he throws scraps of rock, and the dust of sharp-edged granite crystals cuts the stones to powder before they have time to drop. He put in a crowbar once, and I actually saw that inch-thick steel shattered into dust."

"Seems to me," said the Blackguard, "that my Tenderfoot is in for something good."

"So I suspected, but would capitalists send out a young fool like that?"

"Oh, I don't know. He's full of ignorance and bliss, but he learns quickly, doesn't get scared, keeps his mouth shut. Besides, he's honest."

Something made La Mancha look round, and there in the twilight, coming down out of the woods, were Miss Burrows and Mr. Ramsay, hand-in-hand.

The infantile innocence of their faces made him laugh: the willowy prospector, rather than embarrass any approaching fun, dodged into the shanty; so, when the enraptured couple stood before him, the Blackguard sat alone.

"We thought we ought to tell you first," the Tenderfoot simpered, blushing hotly all over,—"we are engaged."

"Oh!" said the Blackguard gravely, "since when?"

"Why, ever so long ago," Miss Burrows sighed, "this afternoon. Won't you congratulate us?"

"Next week," said the Blackguard, "if you are still of the same mind, you shall receive my blessing. Have you told Mr. Burrows?"

"No, he was too busy—but we thought that you would"— Then the girl's face flushed with a sudden indignation. "You said he would, Charlie, but he doesn't—he's a beast!"

"I know," said the Blackguard; "that is the nature of the animal. Do you think, my dear, that this young man is worthy of you?"

"I don't know," pondered the little flirt, coyly enough; but, perhaps to prove his ardour, dropped Mr. Ramsay's hand.

"Do you know, my dear,"—the Blackguard was quite paternal,—"you are going to be very beautiful? How can I commend this young gentleman's suit while I love you myself? I am jealous of my young rival." This because the rival was very justly indignant. "He is young, he is very good-looking, and quite, oh, quite respectable. Now, I'm neither young, nor good, nor beautiful, and I'm not a bit respectable, so I can speak without damaging his prospects. I have no chance whatever, but"—he bowed gracefully—"I love you, my dear, very much."

The girl raised one eye to look at him, then lowered both out of shyness, then pouted towards Mr. Ramsay with her forefinger pressed to her lips as though considering; then, seeing that her fiancé stood stupefied, she thought that she owed him a lesson, and ran for the woods.

Mr. Ramsay would have given chase at once.

"One moment," said the Blackguard, smiling in his saturnine way, while a twinge of pain from his arm made him draw up stiffly. "Young man, you don't let the grass grow underfoot; you needn't be in such a hurry—she'll wait for you, and you have weeks and months to make up for this minute. About that shanty you knocked down this morning?"

"Well? It's no business of yours—I mean, forgive me for talking like that."

"I forgive you," said the Blackguard blandly. "Don't you think you owe these gentlemen some apology—some compensation?"

"But I daren't offer money."

"You've too much sense. Look here. Burrows keeps a sort of store to supply the prospectors hereabouts. I daresay he'd sell you a couple of Winchester rifles, with a case or so of ammunition, eh?"

"Oh, thanks—what a relief! And they won't be angry?"

"Not very. Now, young man, keep your eye on Miss Violet, because, if I can, I mean to cut you out. I've not much chance, but it's fair to give you warning. Now you may run away."